Playwright and critic Masakazu Yamazaki, who received Japan's top cultural award for his plays and publications, died of malignant mesothelioma this week, a cultural foundation said Friday. He was 86.
Yamazaki began writing plays when he was attending Kyoto University's graduate school and earned recognition for his 1963 work "Zeami," featuring the 14th to 15th century Noh performer and producer known by the same name.
Also known for his 1984 book "Yawarakai Kojinshugi no Tanjo" (Birth of soft individualism), in which he predicted how society would change following Japan's rapid economic growth, Yamazaki, a professor emeritus at Osaka University, received the Order of Culture in 2018.
He died on Wednesday at a hospital in Hyogo Prefecture, according to the Suntory Foundation, of which he was a board member since it was founded in 1979.
He spent his childhood in Manchuria, currently the northeastern region of China, and returned to Japan after the end of World War II.
